


The Blizzard and Near-Death of Karkat Vantas

by lucky_spike



Series: Stabdads [10]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Gen, Sickfic, Snowed In, Stabdads AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-16
Updated: 2011-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucky_spike/pseuds/lucky_spike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 24-hour bug is making the rounds through Midnight City in the midst of a truly hellacious winter. Karkat falls prey, and is fairly certain he's going to die, despite his guardian's skepticism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blizzard and Near-Death of Karkat Vantas

Winter hit Midnight City hard the year Karkat was finishing up the eighth grade. November and December sort of shuffled by with a half-hearted chill in the air, maybe a snow shower that would fall damply and melt immediately, but January did its damnedest to make up for it. By the end of January Karkat was beginning to despair that they’d have so many school days to make up for snow cancellations that he’d be in school until mid-July.

He was lamenting their inevitable fate to his classmates one day, over lunch. Not that they hadn’t heard it a thousand times before, but it made him feel better just the same.

“You can only have twenty exthtra dayth of thcool, Karkat,” Sollux sighed, one hand propped up on his fist as he watched the snow drift down outside. “We’ve been through thith.”

Nepeta nibbled at her chicken strip. “I wonder if they’ll let us out early today. It’s snowing so much!”

Vriska leaned forward onto the table, fangs bared in a smirk. “Like hell they will – they want to maximize gruesome snow-caused deaths after school lets out.”

“I, uh, I don’t think, that’s true.” Tavros flinched away when Vriska glared. “Um. Just saying.” He and Gamzee exchanged a high five.

“Right on, dude. Tell her man, they don’t want any of us to die. Just gotta teach us all ‘bout the miracles, s’what I’m sayin’.”

Next to Sollux, Aradia was picking idly at her food. She sniffled. “I can’t say I’d complain if we went home early, even if we did have to make it up in the summer.” She sneezed then, and followed it with a groan, her head in her hands. Sollux leaned over her, suddenly all concern.

“Are you sick?” Karkat leaned in too.

“Yeah.” She sniffed again and looked to him, pale and tired. “I think it’s that thing, whatever’s been going around.” Sollux put his arm around her shoulders.

“Vriska had that last week and puked her guts out for hours,” Terezi chirped. “ _Hours_. Crowbar was freaking the fuck out – Mom took the phone away from him before he could call the hospital.”

“ _Shut up_ Terezi.”

Aradia looked levelly to the other girl before grunting and lowering her head to the table. “Thanks, Taz. I feel loads better now.”

Sollux was rubbing her shoulder cautiously, as if he was unsure about whether or not to continue. “Why didn’t Droog keep you home?”

“I didn’t have a fever this morning when I left.”

“Rough.”

“Thanks, Tavros.”

“Maybe you should go to the nurthe.” Sollux glared at the others, daring them to say anything. “I’ll walk you there if you want.”

“You’re sweet, but I think I’ll make it to the end of the day.” Outside, a gust of wind created a cloud of snow as it disturbed a drift. “I think we’re going home soon anyway.” She sat up and reached out for something, but stopped, faintly surprised. “Where’s my juice?”

“Hm? You didn’t have juice.” Terezi crossed her arms and shrugged. “Did you?” And then, slowly, she looked to Karkat. He had frozen, straw still in his mouth. Terezi sniffed. “Was it cranberry juice, Aradia?”

She nodded. “Well, shit,” Karkat grumbled. He set the box down and glared around the table, to the assembled trolls and humans. On either side of him, John and Terezi inched away. “Goddamn.”

-()-

The worst part was the waiting. After the juice incident, Karkat had been fiercely tuned in to every twinge, sniffle and cough his body produced, analyzing and over-analyzing it for signs of disease. John assured him that he would probably be fine, but Terezi took unique pleasure in gasping dramatically every time he sneezed or coughed, and then whispering to those around her about plagues and impending doom. Karkat was unamused.

School, in actuality, did not let out early, and halfway through math Aradia left, on order of the teacher. Karkat saw Droog’s car appear in the parking lot not long after, and he walked her out, his hand on her shoulder, guiding her along through the snow and ice. Karkat scowled, and the suggestion of a headache that had started at the beginning of class pounded just a little bit more behind his eyes.

“Could just be that you’re tired,” John said carefully, as they got their things out for gym. “Or it could be something else – maybe you just have a headache? That happens sometimes.”

“I don’t think so,” Karkat snapped. “Aradia gave me her plague, I know it.”

“Maybe not though, man. Miracles happen all the time.”

“Gamzee, I think he’s probably going to die,” Strider said, readjusting his sunglasses. “Hardly any other ways for this all to pan out, is there? Death, that’s it.”

John gave him a look, brow furrowed with a slight crooked frown. “Dave that’s not helpful.”

Karkat only grumbled at them as he dragged himself out of the locker room. “He’s probably right.”

Gym only served to exacerbate the headache, and by the end of class Karkat was certain he felt a little weaker. At least he only had one more class to get through before the school day came to a blessed end, and it was history, so it was ideal for sleeping through. As it turned out, they were forced into playing historical trivia games all class, and sleep was impossible.

And of course, Karkat reflected, the icing on the cake would be that Slick would be late. He usually was, of course, but Karkat was not usually combating a massive insult to his immune system. He stood out in the snow and the cold, thick coat wrapped as tightly around himself as could be, snowflakes melting on his sneakers and dampening his socks.

 _It’s like the perfect fucking storm_ , he thought darkly, as he watched the street for the car to appear. _But instead of a giant wave it’s a deadly plague of death_.

It didn’t occur to him that he might have said that out loud until Rose replied “Karkat I think you might be taking the drama level on that just a smudge far.” She smirked, one eyebrow raised. “And that’s coming from me.”

He mumbled something, turning away, and his heart skipped when the sleek black car turned the corner, chains rattling on the tires. Slick was predictably going too fast, but he only bounced off of two other cars before sliding to a stop more-or-less straight in front of the school. Karkat trudged off, waving goodbye to Lalonde before he got in the car.

“I’m dying,” he announced immediately. Slick looked over, dubious.

“You look fine to me.”

“Aradia has the death plague and I have contracted it from her.” The car rolled off, tires spinning until they found purchase. Karkat continued, over Slick’s vehement curses of the weather. “I think the way it progresses is to start with a headache – which I already have – and then you get achy and tired and then you get a terrible fever, vomit copiously, dry out from lack of fluids and then die painfully.”

“Uh huh.” The car slid gently into the back of someone else’s at a stop sign. The other motorist spun, poised to fly into a rage, and immediately returned to forward-facing when he saw exactly whose car it was.

“I’d like to be buried whole, in case of a zombie uprising,” Karkat went on. His throat was a little sore, but no matter. He had to make his last plans known. “And a small funeral, nothing too ostentatious.”

“Yeah.”

He raised his own hand to his forehead and closed his eyes in a grimace. “The fever has started. I may only have hours to live. Maybe I should call everyone and say my goodbyes.”

“Oh, honestly.” Slick knocked Karkat’s hand aside and felt his forehead, half-swerving into oncoming traffic. “You’re fucking fine, stop being such a pansy.”

“No, no, I’m dying.” Karkat slouched over to the right, sprawling in the seat and across the door. “Try not to grieve too much – I only wish I could have lived to see ten.”

“Shut up, Karkat.” He turned off onto a side-street, fishtailing and taking out a street sign as he did. “I’m getting pizza; wait in the car.”

-()-

Karkat was pretty sure other people used their ovens for things like cooking and baking, but the only thing the inside of their townhouse’s oven had ever seen was pizzas and re-heated food. He was watching the oven re-heat the pizza as he did his homework several hours later, his head pounding. Slick was wandering in and out of the kitchen, half-heartedly ensuring the pizza didn’t burn and re-filling his glass of whiskey as needed.

“I’m not hungry,” Karkat said, when Spades dropped a slice in front of him, the paper plate sagging under the weight of it. “My stomach hurts.”

“You’re imagining it.” The man dropped into the chair opposite Karkat and tore into his own pizza, craning his neck a little to look at Karkat’s homework. “Eat your food – you’re shoveling us out in the morning and I’m not making you breakfast.”

“I said I’m not hungry.” He crossed his arms across his belly. “I really think I’m sick, Dad.”

“Well drink your water. If you’re gonna fucking vomit yourself to death you might as well delay it.” He spun the homework a little to see it better. “Number four’s wrong.”

Karkat let his head drop to the table, cradled in the crook of his elbow. “I don’t care.”

“Hm.” He pushed the homework back to Karkat. “Come on, kid, eat something.”

“I _said_ I’m not hungry!” he turned his head and glared. “I really think I’m sick – I’m not lying! Or imagining it!”

Slick sat back as Karkat grudgingly took a sip of water. “Fine. You’re so sick, take your homework and go the fuck to bed.”

Karkat finished drinking and gathered his papers up, dragging himself down the hall. “Fine! I hope you have other plans to dig yourself out; I’ll be dead by morning!”

“You will not!” A door slammed. “And watch your fucking language!” He sat in silence for a minute before taking a bite out of Karkat’s pizza slice and washing it down with a gulp of the kid’s water. “Little shit.”

-()-

 _Just once_ , Karkat thought, when he woke up the next morning, squinting as his head pounded in the bright light reflected off the snow outside, _Just once I would like to be wrong about something. Just one time, it’s not too much to ask._

He rolled over with a groan, clutching his stomach as it churned. _Thank God I didn’t eat . . . Copious vomiting_. The clock said six thirty. That gave him an hour and a half before he was supposed to be at school, which basically meant he had an hour before he had to convince Slick he was too sick to go, much less shovel out the front sidewalk. He brushed his hair off his forehead. Well at least he wouldn’t have to fake a fever: his hair was soaked, and he was covered in a cold, clammy sweat. Even Slick would buy it.

It took him thirty minutes to work up the energy to drag himself out of bed and downstairs, wrapped in his comforter, cursing Aradia the entire way. She just _had_ to leave her fucking stupid juice there, and she _couldn’t_ pay attention when he started drinking it and _why_ didn’t anyone else tell him that was hers and fucking stupid . . .

“This is stupid,” he groaned, shuffling through the kitchen, and suddenly he realized that convincing Slick that he was sick wouldn’t be difficult at all. Death would probably be an improvement over his current condition, except for the mobility concerns.

The door to the office was open, and the room was deserted. Karkat almost groaned again – nothing about this was going to be pleasant. Hesitantly, he shambled down the hall to the bedroom door and, even more cautiously, he pushed it open with a long creak. Part of him hoped that Slick would have gone out last night, maybe passed out somewhere else, but after last night they were effectively snowed in.

 _Snowed in_. The thought limped to the forefront of Karkat’s feverish brain. Was there even school today? No point in waking Slick up if, well, if there was no point in it. He was just turning to go back to the office – the news would be on, and the school cancellations would be up – when a hoarse litany of swearwords broke out from the disorderly pile of blankets on the bed. Karkat, through the fever and the sudden twinge of fear in his gut, couldn’t help but smirk.

“Told you so.”

“Get out of here you fucking pansy.” A skinny finger surfaced and pointed accusingly. “You’re a fucking vector of disease.”

Karkat turned and shuffled away. “I’ll be in the office.”

He fell back asleep on the couch – school had been cancelled, again, and no surprise; the streets were nigh impassable. He woke up around noon, when Spades stumbled into the office, shaky and pale and obviously ill. Karkat snickered before erupting into a fit of hacking coughs. “Now who’s imagining everything?”

His guardian didn’t respond, instead shoving Karkat aside and collapsing onto the couch, his head in his hand. After ten minutes of _Judge Joe Brown_ , Spades blindly fumbled the remote away from Karkat and started flipping through the channels.

“Terezi and I were going to make a cooking show once,” Karkat volunteered, after a full twenty-five minutes of _At Home with Trolla Dean_. “John was going to film.”

“How did that turn out?”

“It didn’t.” Karkat shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around himself. “John’s Dad was using his kitchen, Snowman swore she’d kill us if we tried, and I don’t know how to work our stove.”

“Good because for once I fucking agree with Snowman,” Slick grumbled. “The enormous bitch that she is.”

Trolla was on her fourth stick of butter before they spoke again. “Dad?” Karkat cleared his throat, carefully and gently, choking back another coughing fit. “Does every single part of your body ache right now?”

“Yeah.”

“You feel like you’re gonna die?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” He nestled deeper into the couch and his gathered hoard of blankets and closed his eyes. “S’not just me then.”

“Nope.”

Slick’s snoring woke him up a couple hours later. From his spot on the sofa, Karkat craned his neck over his shoulder to look out the back window. The snow continued unabated – judging by the neighbor’s back doors Karkat estimated a full three feet so far. A part of him thought of the shoveling that would need to be done and he almost whimpered, except that that would risk waking up his dad, which was just about the last thing he wanted at this point in time.

There was another cooking show on now, _Troll Vs. Food_ , and the very sight of the ten-pound hoofbeast sandwich made Karkat’s stomach churn. But Slick had the remote and, predictably, as soon as Karkat twitched weakly for it he jerked awake, snatching the remote away. “I was watching that,” he admonished. Karkat just stared. Evidently, though, Spades had similar feelings toward the show, because he changed the channel almost right away.

They ended up on reruns of _Two and a Half Men_ and didn’t speak once through the entire first two episodes. In fact, Karkat had almost drifted back off when the phone rang. Slick fumbled around on the desk, cursing viciously, before he managed to pick the receiver up and answer. “Fuck you,” he growled. And then he blinked sleepily. “Droog? You sound like shit.”

The mobster crumpled down into the couch, phone clamped up with his shoulder to free up his hand for the theft of one of Karkat’s blankets. “Uh huh. Yeah, me and Karkat. Yeah.” A longer silence. “Serves you right, then.” There was an unintelligible growl on the other end of the phone, followed by a violent coughing fit. “I don’t feel bad for you at all.” More growling and hacking. “Goodbye, Droog. Don’t die.”

“Aradia spread it to him too?”

“And Sollux,” Slick affirmed after he managed to find the cradle of the phone. “The best fucking news is that your little friend is coming around already.”

Karkat’s eyes were drifting shut again. “Oh, good.”

“You want some soup?”

Karkat managed to raise his eyebrows before he yawned and dissolved into a shaking, coughing mess. “Are you offering?” he croaked, when he was done.

Slick winced as he rubbed the largest of the ports on his right shoulder, where the mechanical arm would normally hook in. “Well I’m fucking hungry.”

“I don’t think so.” He closed his eyes and shifted. “’M not hungry.”

“Yeah.” Spades got to his feet, swaying for a second, before he shuffled out of the room. Karkat heard the stove click and ignite, and was surprised then when Slick reappeared a moment later. “Here’s some fucking crackers.” He pressed a few packets of plastic-wrapped saltines into Karkat’s hand. “Eat something so you don’t croak.”

Karkat turned the packets over before tucking all but one away into the blankets. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he grumbled, making to leave, his hand brushing through Karkat’s hair for a split second as he turned. He hit the lights on his way out the door, griping his way down the hall. “Can’t fucking get better if you’re not eating. I need you to fucking shovel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Eventually I will stop writing fanfiction with diseases/injuries/weather-centered elements.
> 
> J/k I love medical shit wait until I figure out a convincing premise for Karkat performing basic trauma medicine. JUST WAIT.


End file.
